Workers' Compensation

Monday, December 8, 2014

Honda agrees to expand air bag recall

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from archive.shreveporttimes.com

WASHINGTON - Honda told a House subcommittee Wednesday it will expand its regional recall of possibly faulty Takata driver-side airbags to a nationwide recall.
Yet Takata told the same House panel it won't comply with a direct demand to initiate such a recall, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Honda said Takata's refusal spurred its decision to take action nationwide. Honda is Takata's biggest customer in the U.S. Of the 8 million recalled vehicles with Takata bags, about 5 million are Honda products.
Honda's promise has no immediate effect, however. There are not enough replacement driver's bags to fix all the vehicles at once. Instead, Honda said it will continue to focus on fixing models in high-humidity locations, where the problem seems worst.
Chrysler Group, meantime, on Wednesday expanded a Takata passenger airbag recall to five more states and three more U.S. territories after a scolding letter from NHTSA over the limited area and "slow pace" of the recall.
Chrysler filed the official recall announcement with NHTSA on Wednesday and says there will be enough parts to fix all the vehicles.
Some Takata bags - both driver-side and passenger-side - have faulty inflators that can deploy the air bags with too much force. That can rip the bags loose from their housings and blast shrapnel into vehicle occupants.
Subcommittee member Billy Long, R-Mo., likened it to driving while having a shotgun pointed at you.
Five deaths have been linked to...

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Labor's new reality -- it's easier to raise wages for 100,000 than to unionize 4,000

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.latimes.com

Union protest

Haltingly, with understandable ambivalence, the American labor movement is morphing into something new. Its most prominent organizing campaigns of recent years — of fast-food workers, domestics, taxi drivers and Wal-Mart employees — have prompted states and cities to raise their minimum wage and create more worker-friendly regulations. But what these campaigns haven't done is create more than a small number of new dues-paying union members. Nor, for the foreseeable future, do unions anticipate that they will.

Supreme Court should affirm the rights of pregnant workers

Blocked from unionizing workplaces by ferocious management opposition and laws that fail to keep union activists from being fired, unions have begun to focus on raising wages and benefits for many more workers than they can ever expect to claim as their own. In one sense, this is nothing new: Unions historically have supported minimum wage and occupational safety laws that benefited all workers, not just their members. But they also have recently begun investing major resources in organizing drives more likely to yield new laws than new members. Some of these campaigns seek to organize workers who, rightly or wrongly, aren't even designated as employees or lack a common employer, such as domestic workers and cab drivers.

Why these new manufacturing jobs won't save the American middle class

The decision of Seattle's government to raise the city's minimum wage to $15 resulted from just such...

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Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.
But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.
“Outstanding!” William F. Whitsitt, who at the time directed government relations at the company, said in a note to Mr. Pruitt’s office. The attorney general’s staff had taken Devon’s draft, copied it onto state government stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to Washington with the attorney general’s signature. “The timing of the letter is great, given our meeting this Friday with both E.P.A. and the White House.”
Mr. Whitsitt then added, “Please pass along Devon’s thanks to Attorney General Pruitt.”
The email exchange from October 2011, obtained through an open-records request, offers a hint of the unprecedented, secretive alliance that Mr. Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general have formed with some of the nation’s top energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory agenda, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with...

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Sunday, December 7, 2014

Carbon Monoxide Kills 2 and Sickens 12 in New Jersey

Carbon monoxide poisoning is a compensable occupational illness under the NJ Workers' Compensation Act. See Fiore v Consolidated Freightways (NJ 1995). In that case the occupational heart condition was held compensable even though the worker had a history of smoking.

Today's post is from the nytimes.com/
Lethal levels of carbon monoxide filled a music rehearsal studio in New Jersey on Saturday, killing two people and sickening a dozen more, the authorities said.
The police in Passaic responded to an emergency call around 1:30 p.m. from someone who reported finding two bodies in a room in the studio at a former warehouse at 61 Willet Street, said Keith Furlong, a spokesman for the city.
The authorities had not released the identities of the dead as of Saturday night because their families had not yet been contacted, Mr. Furlong said.
Ambulances from Passaic and several other communities rushed 12 people to three area hospitals, he said. The patients, who were in different rooms than the two people who died, were conscious but showing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning such as confusion and coughing.
St. Mary’s Hospital in Passaic treated six of the patients, who were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning that was not considered life-threatening, said Vanessa Warner, a spokeswoman for the hospital. Several of the patients had been released as of Saturday night, and one was expected to be admitted for observation, she said. Information about the other six patients was not available Saturday night.
The authorities were still trying to determine what caused the carbon monoxide to rise to lethal levels. Michael DeMarco, the chief assistant prosecutor for Passaic County, said the Passaic Police Department was leading the investigation. A spokesman for the department did...

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See more about Carbon Monoxide Poisoning at the US CDC site. Click here.
"Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that is extremely poisonous and can kill within minutes. In the US each year, nearly 500 die while as many as 20,000 visit emergency rooms for exposure primarily from poorly-maintained heating systems or gas stoves and gas-powered generators used for heat or power during storms."

….

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

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In and Out of Time in Iraq

Today's post is shared from newyorker.com/

I fell out of time in the summer of 2004. I fell back in about seven years later, on September 11, 2011.

The first fall was slow, more of a slide than a drop. It began as I moved around Baghdad, in the summer of 2003, with a growing sense of unease. On Memorial Day, while reporting for the Washington Post, I went on a 1st Infantry Division patrol in western Baghdad with another Post reporter, Anthony Shadid. I talked to members of the patrol, while Anthony talked to the Iraqis in the neighborhood. “Everybody likes us,” Spec. Stephen Harris, then twenty-one years old, told me. Anthony heard a different story. “We refuse the occupation,” Mohammed Abdullah, a thirty-four-year-old Iraqi, told him. “They’re walking over my heart. I feel like they’re crushing my heart.” (Anthony, who had been shot in Israel, in 2002, and was kidnapped in Libya, in 2011, died while covering the rebellion in Syria in 2012.)

The rest of 2003 brought a series of bombings in Baghdad—of the United Nations office, of foreign embassies, of the Red Cross—that clearly were designed to peel away potential allies from the United States. (The U.S. responded to these attacks with flailing and with moral errors, such as the torture of prisoners—and not just at Abu Ghraib.) In the spring of 2004, there simultaneously was a Shiite...
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BP Oil Spill Settlement to Exclude Hurt Cleanup Workers

Today's post is shared from bloomberg.com/

Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) –- BP Plc (BP/), having pledged billions of dollars for damages caused by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, won’t have to make payouts any time soon to more than 95 percent of the workers hurt while cleaning up the mess.

If the workers want money for their physical injuries, they’ll need to sue the company, a federal judge in New Orleans ruled yesterday, saying they no longer qualify for automatic compensation under the company’s medical-benefits settlement.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier expressed frustration that the vast majority of an estimated 20,000 individuals injured from exposure to crude oil and dispersants during the spill weren’t covered by a deal he thought would end such litigation.

BP, based in London, may save as much as $1.2 billion of the estimated $9.7 billion overall cost of its settlement of most private spill-damage claims, according to court filings.

All individuals with exposure-related injuries diagnosed after an April 2012 cutoff date must sue for compensation under contract provisions reserved for latent injuries, such as cancer, which might develop years after someone comes into contact with the spill, BP argued. In yesterday’s ruling, Barbier reluctantly agreed.
September Hearing

“The interpretation may not be what the court envisioned at the time” or what victims’ lawyers thought they’d negotiated, Barbier said in an eight-page ruling...

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A mixed bag in Labor Department’s latest agenda for new worker safety rules

Todsay' post is shared from scienceblogs.com/
I took a little time this week to review the regulatory agenda of worker health and safety initiatives which was issued by the Labor Department. The November 21 document contains a mixed bag of unaddressed workplace hazards and slipped deadlines, as well as a few new topics for possible regulatory action. The fault for some of the slipped deadlines falls right on the doorstep of the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), for example, has been working on a rule that would require machines used in coal mines to cut coal to be equipped with proximity detection devices. The technology is commercially available and would prevent mine workers from being fatally crushed or permanently maimed when struck by this unforgiving equipment. Curiously, the Labor Department’s introductory statement for this new regulatory agenda highlights this new rule as one of Secretary Tom Perez’s priorities. But I’ve got to wonder how much his priorities matter to OIRA staff. MSHA’s draft final rule has been stuck in the “review” process at OIRA for nearly a year. MSHA submitted it to OIRA on January 8, 2014.
Every year, at least one coal miner dies because proximity detection devices are not required on continuous mining machines (let alone on any other mining machines.) In February 2014, Arthur D. Gelentser III, 24, was fatally pinned by one of these machines. After the fact,...

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Saturday, December 6, 2014

Officials: 2 dead, 12 hospitalized in Passaic incident involving carbon monoxide

Today's post is shared from northjersey.com/

PASSAIC – Two people died and 12 were hospitalized in an incident Saturday involving carbon monoxide at a mixed-use commercial building in Passaic, according to Keith Furlong, the spokesman for the city of Passaic.

Police responded to a 911 call around 1:30 p.m. and found two people dead in a small recording studio on the second floor of the building, Mayor Alex Blanco said at a news conference Saturday afternoon. The other 12 victims “experienced confusion and were choking” as they struggled out of other rooms on the floor.

Firefighters on the scene of a carbon monoxide-related incident in Passaic on Saturday.

A man who identified himself as the property owner declined to comment.
The three-story facility is occupied by Streets Rehearsal Studios and has about 20 small rehearsal spaces used by a variety of local musicians and bands, said two musicians at the scene who said they use the space.
The injured are being treated at local hospitals, including St. Mary’s in Passaic. Their names were not provided at the new conference.
“This is a sad day for the city of Passaic,” Blanco said.
The incident at 61 Willet St. drew a...

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U.S. probes Graco recall of 6.1 million child seats

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.detroitnews.com

Washington — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is opening an investigation into whether Graco Children’s Products Inc. delayed a recall of 6.1 million child seats — the largest in U.S. history and the latest example of the stepped-up posture of the auto safety agency.

“The department is committed to ensuring that parents have peace of mind knowing that the car seat in which they are placing their child and their trust is safe and reliable,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “Any delays by a manufacturer in meeting their obligations to report safety issues with the urgency they deserve, especially those that impact the well-being of our children, erodes that trust and is absolutely unacceptable.”

Graco could be fined up to $35 million if the agency determines it failed to recall the seats in a timely fashion. The White House wants Congress to raise the maximum fine up to $300 million per incident.

“There is no excuse for delaying a recall to address any safety-related defect,” said NHTSA Deputy Administrator David Friedman. “If Graco delayed in protecting children and infants from this defect, we will hold them accountable.”

In July, under government pressure, Graco agreed to recall about 1.9 million infant car seats built between July 2010 and May 2013 that have buckles that could become difficult to open, expanding its callback to more than 6.1 million seats.

Graco agreed to...

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Thousands Fast Food Workers Strike in 190 Cities, Demand $15 an Hour Wage

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from ktla.com

Thousands of fast food workers are expected to strike in 190 cities Thursday, demanding a $15 an hour wage, including Iraq war veteran Steven Wilkerson.

Striking workers, demanding a $15 an hour wage, are seen outside a McDonald's restaurant in Los Angeles on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. (Credit: KTLA)

Striking workers, demanding a $15 an hour wage, are seen outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Los Angeles on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. (Credit: KTLA)

He earns $8.50 an hour working at a combined Dunkin’ Donuts, Quizno’s and Godfather’s Pizza joint that’s located inside a Hess gas station in Tampa. He spent over a year interviewing for jobs after he left the Marines before landing this one.

Wilkerson believes the protests are leading to change, in fact, this will be his third time striking. After he picketed earlier this year, his manager began to train him to become a shift manager, a title change that should come with a raise.

“I can’t say that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t protested, but I think speaking out has made it happen faster,” he said.

A lot has happened in the two years since fast-food workers first took to the streets of New York City to demand at least $15 an hour. The issue of fair worker pay is now on the public’s mind, and state and local lawmakers have begun to respond.

Dozens of states and cities have raised the minimum wage for workers in all types of industries to well above the federal minimum wage...

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Friday, December 5, 2014

City Council raises Chicago minimum wage to $13 by 2019

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.chicagotribune.com

City Council passes minimum wage increase

The City Council on Tuesday approved Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to boost Chicago’s minimum wage to $13 an hour by mid-2019, while efforts in Springfield to hike the state’s rate and apply some brakes to further city increases fizzled at least until January.
In an overwhelming 44-5 vote steeped in aldermanic and mayoral re-election politics, Emanuel and supportive council members sought to frame their move as a way to lift out of poverty children in thousands of families, many led by single mothers.
“The minimum wage is speaking to making sure that nobody who works raises a child in poverty,” Emanuel said. “The minimum wage…really comes down to making sure that your child does not go to school on an empty stomach (or) making sure that you don’t pick between medicine or school supplies.”

Where minimum wage stands (infographic)

Addressing the council after the vote, Emanuel at times appeared to be delivering a re-election speech. He called the minimum wage only part of his comprehensive economic strategy that includes education, affordable health care and opportunities for people to learn skills to put them on a career path at a well-paying job.
At one point, while boasting that business interest in Chicago remains strong, the mayor went so far to say that the city was tops in gaining foreign investment and corporate relocations and has the No. 1 “Little League team” —...

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Legislator to introduce right-to-work legislation

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.businessweek.com

AP News

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Republican lawmaker promised Tuesday to introduce a right-to-work bill, prompting warnings from a Democratic leader that the state could see a round of protests reminiscent of the massive demonstrations against Gov. Scott Walker's law stripping public workers of their union rights.

Rep. Chris Kapenga of Delafield, one of the most conservative members of the Assembly GOP caucus, said he's convinced right-to-work legislation is right for the state. He said he believes giving people the choice of whether to join a union will boost incomes and the state's economy.

"It's the right direction to go," Kapenga said in a telephone interview. "I'm convinced this is a very important piece of continuing growth in the state."

The new two-year legislative session begins in January. Kapenga wasn't sure when he would bring the bill forward, saying he needs to talk to the Assembly Republican caucus and make the case for the measure. He said Speaker Robin Vos, R-Burlington, supports the concept.

A Vos spokeswoman had no immediate comment Tuesday evening. Vos said in July he didn't intend to pursue the issue in 2015 but on Monday issued a statement saying he looked forward to discussing the benefits of becoming a right-to-work state. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, had no comment Tuesday. Fitzgerald said Monday that he was open to the idea.

Walker, who won a second term in November's elections, has said...

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Study Finds Violations of Wage Law in New York and California

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

The United States Labor Department says that a new study shows that between 3.5 and 6.5 percent of all the wage and salary workers in California and New York are paid less than the minimum wage.
The study, which examined work force data for the two states, found that more than 300,000 workers in each state suffered minimum-wage violations each month. Labor Department officials said that even if one assumed a violation rate half that nationwide, that would mean more than two million workers across the nation were paid less than the federal or state minimum wage.
Violations were most common in the restaurant and hotel industries, the study found, followed by educational and health services and retail and wholesale.
“These findings are alarming in terms of the prevalence of the problem, particularly in a set of industries where we already know workers earn low wages and struggle to earn a basic family budget,” said David Weil, administrator of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division.
The minimum-wage violations in those two states translate into $20 million to $29 million in lost income per week, the study concluded. Those amounts represent 38 percent of the income of the victimized workers in New York and 49 percent of the income of victimized workers in California.
The study was based on 2011 data, when the minimum wage in New York was $7.25 an hour and $8 an hour in California. The study found that 11 percent of low-wage workers suffered minimum-wage...

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Pregnant worker's case to test justices' 'blind spot'

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.usatoday.com

Supreme Court pregnancy

A pregnant worker's case against UPS looms as a key test for the Supreme Court's male-dominated membership.(Photo: Larry Steagall, AP)
WASHINGTON — When Peggy Young's pregnancy discrimination claim against United Parcel Service comes before the Supreme Court Wednesday, the potential implications will be greater for the court itself than for Young or UPS.
Several cases involving gender discrimination and reproductive rights have hit a 5-4 roadblock at the conservative-leaning court under Chief Justice John Roberts. Now groups representing women, workers, employers and others are watching to see how the justices handle the company's refusal to reassign Young to light duty during her pregnancy.
After last June's ruling that Hobby Lobby and other employers with religious objections could deny their employees health insurance coverage for contraceptives, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went so far as to suggest her male colleagues had a "blind spot" on the issue.
"This is an important case for the court," says Brianne Gorod, appellate counsel at the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center. "The Roberts Court has often ignored the realities of the workplace to privilege employers over their female employees."
The case won't have a major impact on Young, who left UPS in 2009, three years after the dispute over her pregnancy. And it won't have a major impact on UPS, which announced a new company policy last month that will...

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Takata Takes No Action on Demand to Expand Recall of Faulty Airbags

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.nytimes.com

Facing a midnight deadline to expand a recall of defective airbags, Takata, the Japanese auto supplier, had not taken any action Tuesday night on the demand by United States regulators.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave the company an ultimatum last week, to expand the recall beyond a limited geographic region to the rest of the nation or face further legal action and potential penalties. It gave Takata until midnight, Eastern United States time, to comply.

But in a statement released Tuesday morning, Takata’s chief executive, Shigehisa Takada, offered no indication that the company would make such a move.
“We recognize that N.H.T.S.A. has urged Takata and our customers to support expansions of the current regional campaigns in the United States,” he said. When asked to clarify its statement, the company offered no further details.
In a prepared statement for a hearing before a House congressional panel on Wednesday, however, a Takata executive said that the company believed that public safety was best served if limited geographic areas of high humidity “remain the priority for the replacement of suspect inflaters.”

In a statement late Tuesday, David J. Friedman, deputy administrator of the agency, said Takata’s response was disappointing, and added: “Takata shares responsibility for keeping drivers safe and we believe anything short of a national recall does not live up to that responsibility. We will review...

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OSHA Cites Omaha Roofing Business For Failing To Protect Workers From Falling

Today's post was shared by Trucker Lawyers and comes from www.wowt.com

OSHA will be penalizing an Omaha business for allegedly exposing their employees to fall hazards while they were working on a roof.

The four employees were working on a residential roofing job for home builder Hildy Homes in Elkhorn.

They are employed with Affordable Exteriors.

OSHA saw the workers on the roof at heights of 9 to 18 feet on a steep section without required fall protection.

OSHA cited Affordable Exteriors for two willful violations, carrying proposed penalties of $140,000, for failure to provide required fall protection and fall protection training.

According to OSHA officials, the Omaha-based company has a lengthy history of violating OSHA standards. As a result of this incident, Affordable Exteriors has been placed in the Severe Violator Enforcement Program.

“Affordable Exteriors clearly hasn’t made worker safety a priority. It has consistently broken the law by failing to provide fall protection to those employees working on roofs,” said Marcia Drumm, OSHA’s acting regional administrator in Kansas City, Missouri. “Since 2005, the company repeatedly refused to protect employees and provide proof that it fixed hazards found during OSHA inspections.”

Two willful citations were cited for failure to provide basic safety equipment, such as guardrails, safety nets, warning-line systems or personal fall arrest systems.

OSHA also found that the workers had inadequate training in fall safety.

OSHA cited the company five times in the...

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IS UTILIZATION REVIEW IN THE CARDS FOR 2015?

Today's post was shared by CAAA and comes from politicsofhealthcare.blogspot.com

Utilization Review (UR) is the process in Workers Comp whereby outside physicians decide whether or not to authorize care prescribed by a PTP (Primary Treating Physician) or consultant called upon by the PTP to advise about the next diagnostic or therapeutic steps that should be taken for an industrial patient or injured worker. Under current California law the UR physician does not have to be licensed to practice medicine in California -- any state license suffices. Proponents of the current system argue in support of the position that where a physician is licensed is beside the point and should not be made an issue. What matters, they say, is that he is knowledgeable in the specialty in which he opines and on this basis should be allowed to approve or disallow authorization for treatment based on accepted peer review guidelines. Opponents point out that the UR physician is actually practicing medicine and should be just as responsible to the state medical board as the PTP.

Opponents assert that some insurance companies go out of there way to find physicians who are more likely than others to be nay-sayers who deny more diagnostic services and treatment than their colleagues. California's state medical board has recognized this awkward situation and is on record saying that UR is part of the practice of medicine and that UR physicians on California cases should be licensed in this state. This writer agrees, but it will take fresh legislation to get this change into law. In...

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Growth In U.S. Health Spending In 2013 Is Lowest Since 1960

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from kaiserhealthnews.org

National health spending grew 3.6 percent in 2013, the lowest annual increase since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began tracking the statistic in 1960, officials said Wednesday.

Spending slowed for private health insurance, Medicare, hospitals, physicians and clinical services and out-of-pocket spending by consumers. However, it accelerated for Medicaid and for prescription drugs, according to the report, published online by the journal Health Affairs.

Health care spending has grown at historically low rates for the past five years, which is consistent with declines generally seen during economic downturns, such as the Great Recession that crippled the U.S. economy at the end of 2007. Looking ahead, “the key question is whether health spending growth will accelerate once economic conditions improve significantly; historical evidence suggest that it will,” noted the authors, who are from the CMS Office of the Actuary.

health spending 570

They also pointed out, however, that in the near term, the health sector will “undergo major changes that will have a substantial impact” on consumers, providers, insurers and sponsors of health care. These are the result of the health law’s creation of online marketplaces, its expansion of Medicaid, a shared federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled, and restraints the law made to the Medicare program, the analysts found.

“The balance of these and many...

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